“Adjudication According to Law” Embedded with “Uniformity of Case Judgments”: An Analysis Starting from the Definition of “Law”

The legal academia has long been engaged in theoretical debates concerning “adjudication according to law” and related propositions. To resolve these disputes and build consensus, the term “law” in “adjudication according to law” must be defined as a system of justified public standards of conduct-that is, a legal system integrating both formal and substantive values. Given that the creation and application of legal rules are inherently directed toward achieving legal purposes imbued with diverse jurisprudential values, they possess both legitimacy and justifiability. On this basis, a teleological-principled-rules framework, grounded in a value-oriented legal order, proves to be the more suitable model for a modern rule-of-law system. Furthermore, only through such a structural theory of law can we justify how the modern doctrine of “adjudication according to law”-distinguishing between routine and hard cases-incorporates the requirement of “uniformity of case judgments” in varying forms. Ultimately, this adjudicative mechanism, which embeds “uniformity of case judgments”, not only coherently integrates formal and substantive rule of law but also constitutes a dynamic institutional framework wherein legislation and the judiciary work in concert to reinforce and stabilize cooperative expectations in modern societies.